Neonatal hypothermia is widely recognized as an important contributing factor to neonatal morbidity, especially in low and middle income countries. The radiant warmer, an open care system is an essential gadget in the nursery, playing a vital role for controlling this health problem among sick preterm newborns in developing countries.
The aim of the study is to assess the effectiveness of Tegaderm Versus Micropore used for covering the skin probe of preterm newborns under radiant warmer in terms of accuracy of recorded skin temperature of baby and heater output of the radiant warmer.
A prospective pre-experimental study with cross over design was conducted in a selected neonatal intensive care unit of a tertiary level hospital to find out the effectiveness of Tegaderm Versus Micropore used for covering the skin probe of preterm newborns nursed under the radiant warmer in terms of accuracy of recorded skin temperature of baby and heater output of the radiant warmer. Fourteen preterm neonates were purposively enrolled for the study in which axillary temperature, skin probe temperature of the babies and heater output of the radiant warmer were recorded.
Out of 14 enrolled preterm babies there were 8(57.1%) male and 6 (42.9) female with mean age 6.36 ±5.86 days, mean birth weight (gms) 1124.3±210.2 and gestational age (days) 213.14± 15.5 (188–234). There was no significant difference between the mean axillary & probe (tegaderm) temperature recordings {(36.7 + 0.2) & 36.6 + 0.2), (p = 0.33)}Vs axillary & probe (micropore) {(36.7+ 0.2) &36.6 +0.1) (p = 0.36)} and the heater output (Tegaderm Vs Micropore) (35.7+15.4 Vs 36.1+14.5), (p = 0.13) (p > 0.05).
It is concluded that both the methods are equally effective for fixing the skin probe in terms of accuracy of skin temperature and heater output, but more cost effective is the micropore.
